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With the launch of BladeLogic Release 7 automation suite, the Lexington, Mass., company is enabling IT administrators to synchronize configuration management across the disparate groups of people within the data center.

Currently, management software addresses individual aspects within data centers, but there is nothing that brings all those policies under a single umbrella, enabling all those people to work from the same starting point, said Vick Viren Vaishnavi, director of marketing at BladeLogic.

The result is a host of policies that arent always in synch, so when one person makes changes to an application in accordance with their policies, those changes arent always immediately tracked by other people and may go against other policies, Vaishnavi said.

Such scenarios also could hamper a companys ability to stay in compliance with the multitude of federal regulations that govern business.

"People are not talking to each other," he said. "Theyre all actually islands of automation, but there are no bridges. … The fundamental problem youre trying to tackle is getting away from a siloed environment."

That will change with Release 7, Vaishnavi said, which is available immediately.

Key among the enhancements to the automation software is the Synchronous Management architecture, policies to bring together provisioning, configuration and compliance capabilities from multiple teams. Now if one team makes a change to an application or operating system, that change—done in accordance with policies that are the same for all teams—can be viewed and acted upon by others.

Enhancements to BladeLogic Operations Manager include rules-based compliance auditing and integration of security, build and operational regulatory policies. Administrators also have improved access control and out-of-box best practices for security, build, configuration and policies.

In addition, BladeLogic Application Release Manager offers greater streamlining of the packaging and promotion of J2EE and .Net applications.

The result of the improvements will be fewer policies, reduced operational costs and better compliance, Vaishnavi said.

Chris McDaniel, director of IT operations at Rearden Commerce, who has been beta testing BladeLogic technology, said Release 7 has streamlined the migration of applications to three new data centers the San Mateo, Calif., application service provider is building.

"Its allowed us to cut down on our data center migration from several months to a little over a month," said McDaniel, who had used other data center automation software at another job before opting for BladeLogic this year when coming to Rearden.

In addition, the software has made it easier for Rearden to stay in compliance with service-level agreements and change management requirements set for by its clients. Though a private company, Rearden is planning to go public, and having the BladeLogic suite will enable it to stay in compliance with the myriad federal regulations that govern public companies, he said.

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